The Jordan Affordable Housing Program of UN-Habitat and Jordan’s government is a mainly private sector funded project that aims to deliver housing units at affordable prices, so that the increasing population and refugees have the possibility to access housing without the use of a subsidy.

Tags: Housing, Strategic Planning, Social Cohesion

Challenges addressed

The lack of affordable housing in Jordan

Manage the rising number of inhabitants and refugees

Design an innovative and lasting housing solution

Main objectives

Provide affordable housing units for lower-middle income inhabitants

Design good quality and low-cost housing units

Produce 10.000 units a year

Promote financial sector engagement

Facts

Project type Social Housing

Promoter Government of Jordan and UN-Habitat

Start date 2014

Estimated end date 2018

Funding Private sector funding

Project description

Jordan has, as many other cities around the world, a lack of affordable housing, and even more with the increasing number of inhabitants and refugees in Jordanian cities. And with this project, Jordan aims to provide an innovative and lasting solution to this situation. Currently, there are more than 10 million inhabitants in Jordan and the National housing deficit is of ~100,000 units. Furthermore, there is the added value of 1.3 million Syrian refugees settling in Jordan’s cities.

The government of Jordan together with the UN-Habitat program and thanks to private sector funding launched the Jordan Affordable Housing (JAH) Program with the main aim of providing affordable, good quality housing units for lower-middle income inhabitants without the use of subsidy.

The JAH Program optimised the housing size and design in order to provide affordable, good quality and low-cost housing. After a competition, the final proposed housing model has 65 m2 with shared plots and incremental construction for 15.000 JD. The smaller units can be extended in horizontal and vertical for additional 11.000 JD, so that it can be adjusted to every family size and needs.

The project consists of two phases: the first one (2014-2016) was to design the JAH structure and construction of up to 20 demonstration units; the second one (2016-2018) is to be the implementation at scale and operation of the JAH entity.

In June of 2016, the first pilot housing units were opened for demonstration in Ramtha and three other cities, thanks to the funding of the Swiss Government and the JAH Program. The units were furnished for the demonstration by IKEA.